The Greyhound from Montreal to Boston passes through Montpellier. On the way down to MiT5 I was tempted to get off the bus there. I’d ditch the conference; hitch an after-work ride with a friend up to the plains. And just hide out. That’s how tired I was.
Who needs conferences? Well, I do. I work at home. And online. A virtual vacuum. Have to check in once and a while, meet actual people. I’m still in touch with at least four people met at MiT4. Conferences remind me of why I’m not an academic. And that it’s okay that I’m not. Because I know where they hang out.
And besides, I’d worked so hard on my paper. Oh pride. I quite liked Entre Ville: this city between us, and was looking forward to presenting it.
The knowledge that the Greyhound from Boston to Montreal also passes through Montpellier is what got me through hectic April. A carrot / stick type situation. What a cruel month. Early on I caught the worst-head-cold-ever and never quite shook it. And then there was all that snow. I know snow is to be expected in Montreal in mid-April, but this storm was demoralizing all the same.
There were endless other April deadlines to meet even before Entre Ville: this city between us, took over all waking sleeping and dog walking hours. Somewhere in there, there was also a roadtrip, someone’s birthday, an OBORO vernnisage and two days of Concordia MFA reviews. Not necessarily in that order. Through all of that April, though MiT5’s jam packed schedule, through an aggressive mist, and the siren-nights of Roxbury, through yet another interminable stopover in White River Junction, not to mention the generalized aggravation of coach travel itself, the bus-stops-in-Montpellier carrot dangled before me.
Montpellier’s dilapidated bus depot was a sight for sore eyes. As was my friend, waiting there in the drizzle to whisk me out of town along route 2 up into the Vermont Piedmont, up into the mud. Still in the throes of spring frost heaves, the deeply rutted and brown-puddled dirt roads slowed us to a crawl. Sap lines ran along side, pacing us.
The first time I came up here was around this time of year, I said. Maybe a little earlier. It was raining, the sap lines were running and the road looked like this. This is staying inside weather, I said as we walked from the car to the house. Wet, wind, cold and mud. I went to bed early, slept like a whole pile of logs, woke up bright and late with sun streaming in my window, no sign of the head cold I’d been fighting all through MiT5, all through April. Not a cloud in the sky and clear skies ever since.
I’m an easily preoccupied person. I forget names, faces and dates, and generally fail to know what’s going on around town. I work on disparate projects concurrently and generally have lots on my mind. Sometimes I have empty on my mind. The high plain, the close sky, days on end to listen to the wind, to watch the grass green, to squint into distance, a pale view of the hills. The opposite of Entre Ville.
. . . . .